The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-05-22
THE COMSTOCK LODE.
SOME OF THE MEN 1T HAS MADE
MANY TIMES MILLIONAIRES.

Kings Who Made Vast Fortunes -
Sharon and His Remarkable vageries
LUCKY Baldwin and His Career
Interesting Incidents Pleasantly
Told.
A Virginia City, New, letter to the PhiId-
delphie Times says: The presence of ]. W.
Mackay in Virginia City a few weeks ago
set the tongues of the gossips going and
they are not ceased wagging yet. There's
a deal in sight, they've got $500 on the
2,50O-foot level" ''they've struck it rich in
Best and Belcher." These are some of the
rumors flying around. OF course, they are
for the most part baseless; but there is a ia
tality about hanger-on in mining camp.
He never learns anything after his first les
son There is also superstition about these
people that you will find nowhere else.
They are the Micawbers of this epoch.
Their lives are devoted to waiting for that
ghostly something to turn up Pending the
seldom-recurring visits of Mackay or some
other magnate, these worthless endeavor to
turn up something on their own account-a
jack, an ace, a king-whatever is needed to
fill hand Sometimes they get caught
foolng with fate, and then they get turned
up. The coroner attends to the remaining
ceremonies.
THE WONDERFUL CoMSTOCK.
What a career this wonderful Comstock
lode has hadl And what men it has brought
to the suface! In the barroom of the Bald
win Hotel San Francisco, is a large oil
painting, depicting the arrival of Comstock
and his associate prospectors to this place in
1859. They had come through the Carson
valley up to the head of SiX-mile canyon,
where the Ophir Hosting Works are now
standing, and We're about to camp for the
night. The next morning Comstock dis
covered some float in this stream. The
party remained here, located some claims
far up the mountain side on what is known
as Cedar Hill, being the north spur of Mount
Davidson. They found it a paying ledge,
and their discoveries having become known
down at 1.-THE Bay which is mining lingo
for San Francisco, there was rush in the
spring of go. Since then the history of
Virginia City has been given to the world
piecemeal Stupendous fortunes have been
made here by men whose highest ambition
had never scared beyond the possession of
800 600 until they began making big money.
Then the wolf in human nature asserted it
self. ''Give! Give! Give!n they cried to
mother earth and to their credulous fellow
mortalS with weakness for buying mining
stocks. Out of the debris of the past twenty
years few names will ever be prominent
in the annals of this ragged mining camp
John Mackay, William Sharon, John p.
Jones. There are others who have enioved
brief prominence. Some of them are still
living and are very wealthy, but they have
no salient points of character ON which one
may dwell with even momentary interest.
They are simply rich hogs, living in little
better stys than some other hogs, swilling,
groveling in their purely animal pleasures,
living out their little day and finally passing
into their original nothingnesS with grunt.
Comstock, the discoverer of this great
lode, has passed into obscurity. Some say
he is dead, others that he is prospecting in
Arizona Whether dead or alive he has
passed from the contemplation of the people
of this town.
A HARD TOWN.
Virginia City was a hard town in early
days. A imam for breakfast was part of
every days bill of fare Shootings, stab
bings, fights-these were always ION tap"
Finally, as the town grew in importance as
a result of the constant discoveries, an eff
fort was made to hold down the "rustlers"
A vigilance committee "601n-was organ
lied and nearly all the respectable citizens
were members of the organization. The
toughs were notified to ''quit or git" There
were no second notifications Failure to OBJ
serve the iniunctions of 1901" was invaria-
bly, followed with hanging, conducted with
neatness and dispatch, and in 1873 the town
had quieted down SO it was possible for re-
spectacle citizen to live here. But there was
never time when hard cases were not
plentiful OF late years, however, they
have been obliged to behave themselves
Many of them have scattered to Deadwood,
BOdie, Leadville and Arizona. Dozens of
the 'rustlers" of early days on the Com
stock have danced on air in Montana, Wyo-
ming Dakota, Colorado, or Arizona since
or threw UP their hands and passed in their
chips at the crack of a rifle or pistol Vir-
ginia City is very tame town to-day. And
it's a badly frayed town, too; whereas in
the real flush times of "a, rs and rs there
was population of IL, 900 people here, there
are now but a few hundred G. street, the
principal thoroughfare, reveled in the pos
session of forty faro banks and as many sa-
looms. D street was the home of the soiled
doves. For four blocks there was an I'M
broken line of these palaces of bestiality,
and such orgiesl And all the time,
night and day and Sunday and Monday,
10000 were digging in the bowels Of the
earth, underneath the town, for the root of
all evil, the purchaser of many good things
that without which we cannot exist in these
latter days; and the mills were reducing the
crude material, while other mills were
refining it and minis were coming it and
sending it forth to bless and curse the world
at once.
MACKAY'S START.
There never was such a mining camp in
this country as Virginia City for at least
five unbroken years. In the Ophir once
delved a sweating miner, pushing al ore
car on the 700-foot level and wishing
he might be so fortunate some day as
to get $4,000 together to ease his aged
mothers declining years; then, as
his sobriety and intelligence were
better appreciated, he was given a
place as foreman in the Kentuck mine;
from there to the Bulletin, as superintend-
emit, was but step. One day he got a
pointer from the superintendent of the Ken
tuck, j. NJ Walker, brother OF ex-Gov.
Walker, of Virginia, and he acted on it.
One other day, not long afterwards, he found
himself the possessor of 100000 in $50 gold
pieces. But that $4,000 didn't seem half
as big at the so, 900 he didn't possess a few
months ago. He took himself around be-
hind the hosting works one day and said:
John, it's time you were catching on if
you are going to-" and from that day in
1871 he has never given up his efforts to
catch on. When / first knew him he mod
estly admitted an income Of $1,000 per
month. But at that time the famous bo-
nanza firm had become q fact. IL was COM
posed of John w Macllay, the whilom ore
car pusher in the Qphir; James G. Fair,
former California miner James G. Flood
and William O'Brien, formerly proprietors